It's invariably a case of "follow the money", There's also an ever increasing number of "revolving door" lobbyists. These pesons move between their
lobbying jobs and Congressional and regulatory agencies and back out.

Although the influence powerhouses that line Washington's K Street are just a few miles from the U.S. Capitol building, the most direct path
between the two doesn't necessarily involve public transportation. Instead, it's through a door—a revolving door that shuffles former federal
employees into jobs as lobbyists, consultants and strategists just as the door pulls former hired guns into government careers. While officials in the
executive branch, Congress and senior congressional staffers spin in and out of the private and public sectors, so too does privilege, power, access
and, of course, money.

... I expect to see every true blooded American to rise up and take care of the sck and the elderly. Something we should aleady be doing, but
with the federal sugar daddy taking care, why bother. . . right?

Lets show government that their threats are worthless. Lets show government that WE DON'T NEED THEM.

I fully share this sentiment.

However, I work 70 hour weeks. To cover basic stuff. And so do most people, if they can find work at all.

We delegate all of the essential functions of our daily lives to institutional entities. We don't grow food, we are fed. We don't educate our
children, we place them in an educational system which is little better than a holding pen for citizens with no economic applications. We keep them
there till grad school, in fact.

Because no one is retiring.

So here's why we delegate the care of our elderly:

That right there? That's an inverted age-sex pyramid. That's future geriatric ghettoes where Pheonix AZ used to be. They'll stretch on for miles in
every direction: the retirement home sprawl.

And that's the flustercluck that makes caring for the elderly and disabled such a ***** without governemnt support. Which, seeing as it's been
legitimately paid into, ought to be honored.

Our troops(payed for by us) should be sent to Washington to remove all of Congress and the President. They have not done there jobs and the President
is on record of directly threatening to withhold tax payer's monies from them which they are are due? Then I refuse to have any money confiscated
from my earnings!

If I am not mistaken, in a budget shutdown, the Executive branch decides where the money goes. Congress doesn't run the country, they only make the
laws. Obama gets to call the shots. And he could always call this a national emergency. What is absolutely essential could fall under a very big
umbrella.

Certain things must be funded, like our troops in the field, that should be a number one concern, and all troops overseas. That will be first
priority.

Then absolutely essential government functions, military that supports overseas operations and protects our borders, base security, minimum crews at
all agencies, stations that monitor things like weather, fire protection, people tracking satellites, secret service in the field and the people who
support them, essentials to keep critical facilities running.

Then SS and Medicare

And everything else is up to be shutdown, and that include interest on the debt

IMO, cut interest payments first, and all debt obligations. Why should we keep paying the bankers after what they have done to this country.

Big media keeps yelling about default, I say give em what they want.

Then cut the least important government functions and work your way up.

How long can this shutdown last? At this point in time, it seems there will never be any agreement, and once the fertilizer hits the fan, they might
even get entrenched deeper.

Maybe they need to start considering a rapid withdraw from the middle east, and then other bases around the planet.

And what is this going to do to the state budgets?

Personally, I see no reason future generations should be straddled with the huge debts created over the last thirty years.

Originally posted by poet1b
If I am not mistaken, in a budget shutdown, the Executive branch decides where the money goes. Congress doesn't run the country, they only make the
laws. Obama gets to call the shots. And he could always call this a national emergency. What is absolutely essential could fall under a very big
umbrella.

Certain things must be funded, like our troops in the field, that should be a number one concern, and all troops overseas. That will be first
priority.

Then absolutely essential government functions, military that supports overseas operations and protects our borders, base security, minimum crews at
all agencies, stations that monitor things like weather, fire protection, people tracking satellites, secret service in the field and the people who
support them, essentials to keep critical facilities running.

Then SS and Medicare

And everything else is up to be shutdown, and that include interest on the debt

IMO, cut interest payments first, and all debt obligations. Why should we keep paying the bankers after what they have done to this country.

Big media keeps yelling about default, I say give em what they want.

Then cut the least important government functions and work your way up.

How long can this shutdown last? At this point in time, it seems there will never be any agreement, and once the fertilizer hits the fan, they might
even get entrenched deeper.

Maybe they need to start considering a rapid withdraw from the middle east, and then other bases around the planet.

And what is this going to do to the state budgets?

Personally, I see no reason future generations should be straddled with the huge debts created over the last thirty years.

Bring on the default.

BURN BABY BURN!!!

Wow I am shocked that you can make such a rational post yet still try and push communism as being a free market elsewhere... There is nothing you
said in this post that I disagree with. Any way I'll give credit where credit is due and say Good Post! Star for you.

It's invariably a case of "follow the money", There's also an ever increasing number of "revolving door" lobbyists.

It is often much more involved than that. The Elite have many more bases covered than just K street lobbyists.

An Example is the "farm Wars" which shows just how complex the Elites plans can be. Nicole Johnson's
great article shows the plans go all the way
back to 1942!

Food & Water Watch had a really great article on the USDA/FDA corporate Ag Cartel connections. Unfortunately the article was wiped from the internet
when the Rosa Delauro/Monsanto connection became known during the fight to defeat HR-875. Maude Barlow a “no dog in this fight” Canadian, is a
director of both Food & Water Watch and Organic Consumers Assoc. She was handsomely rewarded for selling the US consumer out with an appointment as
New Senior Advisor to the UN president on October 21, 2008.

Organic Consumers Assoc. had a graph (also removed from the internet) showing how food borne illness took a sharp rise, doubling, after the FDA/USDA
replaced US food safety inspection with the International HACCP protocol. Under the new HACCP guidelines the
corporations were now responsible for all the actual inspection and US "food" inspectors reduced to checking paperwork not food. So now the USDA/FDA
are HACCP compliance "paperwork inspectors" and many government testing labs have been closed.

The banker owned media of course played up the food borne illness but not the actual cause - the removal of hands on government inspection. To offset
the screaming of the farming contingent, Barbara Kowalcyk Co-founder, and director of the Center For Foodborne Illness, was trotted out. She states
her son, Kevin died in 2001 from food poisoning.

In her own words in an article in Huffington Post.

“President Obama made history Tuesday when he signed the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act into law.

This historic event establishes
the first major reform of food oversight at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) since 1938...

[No Barbara the last major reform was in
1996 and it was called HACCP cv]

This new law is the first step moving us toward such a system, as described in a recent National Academy of Sciences report which I co-authored.

Specifically, the law will require FDA, as well as food processors and producers, to identify areas of risk so that preventive measures can be
developed and implemented. [description of HACCP cv] It requires FDA to inspect the facilities under its jurisdiction more frequently (every 5-7 years
instead of every 8-10 years), and has provisions to improve food trace-back systems and foodborne illness surveillance efforts....”
www.huffingtonpost.com...

If we go back in time we find Dwayne Orville Andreas,(CEO of Archer Daniels Midland Company and former employee of Cargill, is the most prominent
political campaign donor in the United States. He contributed millions of dollars to Democratic and Republican candidates alike for DECADES.

In 1995, Amstutz as a senior trade negotiator under Clinton, wrote the World Trade Organization Agreement on Agriculture. It got rid of tariffs,
opened borders and with the aid of the United Nations (OIE and FAO), the WTO WROTE the regulations for farming to be implemented worldwide. Amstutz
was also part of the Reagan Administration for 6 years first as under secretary of agriculture for international affairs and commodity programs
(1983-1987) and then as ambassador and chief negotiator for agriculture in the GATT Uruguay Round trade negotiations leading up to the WTO.

Republican or Democrat the Ag Cartel/Banker agenda was carried forward.

Amstutz's role in trade negotiations was just part of the agenda. His next step was to introduce the "Freedom to Farm" legislation of 1996. A
seven-year farm program pressuring the US government to move away from its farmer support programs. This end of the US policy of buying and
stockpiling grain reserves. The resulting over production of grain flooded the market, causing plunging farm
prices. The effects on independent farmers was devastating. U.S. Farmers made up 3.4% of the labor force in 1980 and dropped to 1.9 % by 2002
despite 90% of farmers having outside jobs.

The super cheap grain produced by the new "Farm Policy" was bought up by the Ag cartel and exported to third world countries where it was sold at
below production costs. This bankrupted third world farmers and lead to worldwide factory farms like the one in Mexico of Swine flu fame.

However the Ag cartel wasn't finished with their manipulations.

Next was the Biofuel law (Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 ) and Archer Daniels Midland cleans up big time in the government susidized
biofuel business. link and
link

This new use of grain caused grain prices to rise but that was only part of the manipulation. Back to our good friend Dan Amstutz and his OTHER
employer, Goldman Sachs.

Gramm, head of the CFTC, helped firms such as Goldman Sachs gain influence over the commodity markets. At the end of 2006, food prices across the
world started to rise, suddenly. Wheat had shot up by 80 per cent, maize by 90 per cent, rice by 320 per cent.

...Then, in spring 2008, prices just as mysteriously fell back to their previous level. Jean Ziegler, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to
Food, calls it “a silent mass murder”, entirely due to “man-made actions.” Through the 1990s, Goldman Sachs and others lobbied
hard and the regulations [controlling agricultural futures contracts] were abolished. Suddenly, these contracts were turned into “derivatives”
that could be bought and sold among traders who had nothing to do with agriculture. A market in “food speculation” was born. The
speculators drove the price through the roof....” www.independent.co.uk...

...Today three companies, Archer Daniels Midland, Cargill, and Bunge control the world’s grain trade. Chemical giant Monsanto controls
three-fifths of seed production. Unsurprisingly, in the last quarter of 2007, even as the world food crisis was breaking, Archer Daniels
Midland’s profits jumped 20%, Monsanto 45%, and Cargill 60%. Recent speculation with food commodities has created another dangerous “boom.”
After buying up grains and grain futures, traders are hoarding, withholding stocks and further inflating prices....”
www.globalissues.org...

AND children starved to death....

In 2010 the Ag Cartel's Dream bill "The food Safety Modernization Act" was passed in the lame duck session. With a one line amendment in the near
future inserting the Commerce Clause, the Ag cartel will have placed full control of ALL US food production INCLUDING YOUR GARDEN under THEIR World
Trade Organization. Very neatly side stepping ANY citizen control of the industry.

From the actual law as posted on the FDA website:

SEC. 404. COMPLIANCE WITH INTERNATIONAL AGREEMENTS.
Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade
Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party. www.fda.gov...

The harmonization of laws, regulations and standards between and among trading partners requires intense, complex, time-consuming negotiations by
CFSAN officials. Harmonization must simultaneously facilitate international trade and promote mutual understanding, while protecting national
interests and establish a basis to resolve food issues on sound scientific evidence in an objective atmosphere. Failure to reach a consistent,
harmonized set of laws, regulations and standards within the freetrade agreements and the World Trade Organization Agreements can result in
considerable economic repercussions....

This was the HR875 version: ""in any action to enforce the requirements of the food safety law, the connection with interstate commerce
required for jurisdiction SHALL BE PRESUMED TO EXIST." and I expect a similar one liner to appear as an amendment to the new food law within
a decade.

These words of a lawyer who specializes in interstate commerce clause cases is something we all need to understand because the "Commerce Clause"
does not just effect food.

Ignorance about the law’s broad reach (and how it will be construed by the courts) has thwarted opposition to the bill, which will likely pass
Congress. For example, a newspaper claims the bill “doesn’t regulate home gardens.” The newspaper probably assumed that was true because the
bill, like most federal laws, only purports to reach activities that affect “interstate commerce.” To an uninformed layperson or journalist, that
“sounds as if it might not reach local and mom-and-pop operators at all.” (The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, has sought to forestall
opposition to her bill by falsely claiming that that “the Constitution’s commerce clause prevents the federal government from regulating commerce
that doesn’t cross state lines.”)

But lawyers familiar with our capricious legal system know better. The Supreme Court ruled in Wickard v. Filburn (1942) that even home
gardens (in that case, a farmer’s growing wheat for his own consumption) are subject to federal laws that regulate interstate commerce.

Economists and scholars have criticized this decision, but it continues to be cited and followed in Supreme Court rulings, such as those applying
federal anti-drug laws to consumption of even home-grown medical marijuana. Indeed, many court decisions allow Congress to define as “interstate
commerce” even non-commercial conduct that doesn’t cross state lines — something directly at odds with Rep. DeLauro’s claims.
www.examiner.com...

An Example is the "farm Wars" which shows just how complex the Elites plans can be. Nicole Johnson's great article shows the plans go all the way back
to 1942!

Food & Water Watch had a really great article on the USDA/FDA corporate Ag Cartel connections. Unfortunately the article was wiped from the internet
when the Rosa Delauro/Monsanto connection became known during the fight to defeat HR-875. Maude Barlow a “no dog in this fight” Canadian, is a
director of both Food & Water Watch and Organic Consumers Assoc. She was handsomely rewarded for selling the US consumer out with an appointment as
New Senior Advisor to the UN president on October 21, 2008.

Which is why everyone needs to start working on local food security. Everyone should read these threads:

Wow I am shocked that you can make such a rational post yet still try and push communism as being a free market elsewhere... There is nothing you said
in this post that I disagree with. Any way I'll give credit where credit is due and say Good Post! Star for you.

Poet and I had a discussion on that elsewhere. Often it is not a matter of "ideas" but a matter of the Politically Correct" aka the Elite redefining
words and concepts to promote "lets you and he fight"

As usual the Elite are calling black white when speaking of "Free Market." They are selling "Free Trade Agreements" as "Free Market Economy" when
they are no such thing. (typical bankster move used to blacken a good idea)

If my neighbors and I get together and swap eggs, milk veggies and lambs then that is a "Free Market" The buyer and seller agree on the relative
values of the different foods (labor) and swap.

With the "Free Trade Agreements" the central bankers set the relative values of various currencies and the Corporations set the wages they will pay in
one currency and the prices for the goods in another currency.

To make sure they have plenty of customers and plenty of cheap labor the bankers/corporate cartels embarked on a decades long program to intentionally
BANKRUPTED farmers and destroyed local economies thereby driving potential cheap labor into the cities. On top of that the added over regulation of
small business.

THIS IS A CAPTIVE not a FREE MARKET! People are boxed into one choice, work and buy from the "company" the only difference is instead of one
"company" it is an interlocking set of cartels other wise known as the World Trade Organization. It is nothing more than the new improved version of
the "company store" of the Robber Baron era.

Originally posted by wardk28
I would love to see a Ron Paul/ Herman Caine presidential ticket. The more I learn about the Fair Tax the more I love it. You know they have to be the
right choice because neither one of them get any love from the MSM.

Me, too!!!

Now back to the Debt Ceiling debate:

Just as in 2008, we hear nothing but how this is the end of the world. I am so glad that several of you have managed to show that we would not
automatically have to go into default on August 2nd. It certainly sounds like default would not be a good thing (as it relates to interest rates,
confidence, etc.), but August 2nd seems to not be the actual default day based upon these analyses.

To me, the worst thing of all is how Obama is continuing to scare Social Security recipients. That is just lowdown dirty. And so many people believe
him. My cousin (who is unfortunately a liberal) posted on Facebook today that she was so proud of Obama's speech last night, and she was willing to
pitch in more if necessary so that Social Security benefits would be able to continue for the elderly. It took all of my restraint not to reply to
her (I love my cousin, after all!) She really believes that the evil Republicans want to stop Grandma's SS check.

Here are some ways we could cut spending immediately, and not even touch a single US entitlement or program:

1. First of all, we should cut foreign aid. Especially to countries we are borrowing from, like China! A kindergartener could understand that it
makes no sense to give money to a country and then turn around and borrow money from them. It's time to stop trying to buy their friendship. I like
the "walk softly but carry a big stick" philosophy myself.

2. I don't understand the Federal Reserve enough to know for sure, but Ron Paul's idea to stop paying the debt to them sounds good. He explains it
as money we owe ourselves. However, I've also read that the Federal Reserve is not technically part of the Federal Government, which makes me a
little skeptical of that idea. As I said, I am not well versed enough on the topic to be 100% certain that would work. But it sounds like a great
solution if he is correct.

3. Cut all grants to researchers in foreign countries. Did you know that we are funding research in China on Chinese prostitutes done by Chinese
researchers? That's just one example. They can study their own prostitutes (and fund it themselves).

4. This should probably be higher than number 4, but we need to bring some of our troops home.

If my neighbors and I get together and swap eggs, milk veggies and lambs then that is a "Free Market" The buyer and seller agree on the relative
values of the different foods (labor) and swap.

With the "Free Trade Agreements" the central bankers set the relative values of various currencies and the Corporations set the wages they will pay
in one currency and the prices for the goods in another currency.

To make sure they have plenty of customers and plenty of cheap labor the bankers/corporate cartels embarked on a decades long program to intentionally
BANKRUPTED farmers and destroyed local economies thereby driving potential cheap labor into the cities. On top of that the added over regulation of
small business.

THIS IS A CAPTIVE not a FREE MARKET! People are boxed into one choice, work and buy from the "company" the only difference is instead of one
"company" it is an interlocking set of cartels other wise known as the World Trade Organization. It is nothing more than the new improved version
of the "company store" of the Robber Baron era.

edit on 24-7-2011 by crimvelvet because: correct spelling

I'm a big fan of the free market. But you are 100% correct: we have not had a free market in America for a
L-O-N-G time. So when people claim that our current problems are proof that the free market system does not work, they are not basing their
conclusions on observations of a true free market economy.

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